Few things in gaming are more annoying than grinding out levels only to be awarded pieces of loot you already own. Overwatch and Hearthstone players know this pain all too well, but they’ll soon become less familiar with it.
Blizzard seems to understand its players’ pain, and Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan and Hearthstone Director Ben Brode both announced changes to their respective game’s loot box systems yesterday. Overwatch players will soon receive far fewer duplicate items in loot boxes, while their Hearthstone brethren can look forward to every legendary card they get being one they don’t already own.
Kaplan promised “significant improvements” to Overwatch’s loot box system that would “drastically reduce the rate of duplicates that you’ll get out of any loot box.”
Of course, this doesn’t mean every single item players unlock will be new. Kaplan added that “that the system doesn’t have infinite content, so at some point you’re obviously going to get duplicate items.”
Those points, however, will be fewer and further between. And because players are awarded in-game currency when they receive duplicates, that means another change is also needed to keep the game’s economy balanced. Blizzard’s plan for this is to award an increased number of in-game coins for every duplicate item that players do receive. He promises that this will result in gamers ending up with the same or more number of coins from their loot boxes as they currently get.
Meanwhile, Brode explained that all every single legendary card Hearthstone players receive will be one that’s new to them. Additionally, players “will be guaranteed to open a legendary card within their first 10 packs of a new set.”
Hearthstone’s loot changes will go into effect when its next expansion is released, while the Overwatch loot tweaks are live now in the game’s PC public test realm and will presumably make their way to all versions of the game once Blizzard irons out any issues it encounters while testing.
Blizzard’s newfound loot generosity also resulted in the recent announcement that Twitch and Amazon Prime members can get a free legendary Overwatch loot box.
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